Ingles y Literatura Day 4

26/6/09

After learning quite a lot of vocab in the first three days, today was a day of review. We started off as always with our Warm-ups; this time imitating transportation modes, expressions, and animals. For the second activity we played pictionary using the same vocab. Things got pretty heated between the two teams, but in the end we remembered that it was just a game.

Andrés waits expectantly as the teams work 

out the word Octopus (el pulpo)

Yeihfer draws out Eye Lashes (las pestañas) for his team to guess

Charlie (Carlos) trying to think of a word that 

has escaped him

Luis Felipe celebrating his team's correct guessing of a word

Fabian, unable to accept defeat

The beginning of the long trek up from the Colegio to 

the Parque de las Nevadas.
Ingrid, posing on a ledge above all of Suba

Eva, with a forlorn look, gazes over the city

The police who escorted us on our field trip

took the group picture.

At the park, we played soccer ... 
raced ... 
and took pictures of ourselves. 

Ingles y Literatura Day 3

25/6/09 

Today was an exciting day in the Taller de Ingles y Literatura for two reasons:

1) The students were able to really loosen up while they learned the vocabulary of quite a long list of animals. We ran, pounced, jumped, slithered, swam, and crawled around the room as monkeys, snakes, bulls, whales, penguins, wolves, and even rhinoceros. For the most part the rooms are sound proof, so the other classes were spared the multitude of noises made to howl at the moon, sing like a whale, growl like a dog, and OooOOooo like a monkey. 

2) We did are first activity with acting and many of the students loved it. The scene was at a police station with an investigator and a thief. The thief had to explain to the police officer why they had a certain animal in their bag. Though a bit ridiculous considering that the bag is about a 1'6'' x 1' and the thief had stolen a monkey, then an elephant, then a cat, the students had some creative and real answers. They were extremely adept at thinking on their feet.

I interviewed Andrés to see what his thoughts were on the

crime and to make sure that he wasn't an accomplice.

Those in the audience watched excitedly, often times

participating in what was happening in the scene. 

Juan Carlos had to explain how he fit a full-grown 

elephant in the small bag. Although the assumption was 

magic, the truth was much graver as he admitted to chopping

it apart in order to fit it. 

Juan Pablo was the first to go for the day. He was the perfect

monkey thief but with good intentions. He asserted that he 

had to steal the monkey in order to feed his children. 

juanpabloladron.WMA.ff.mp3

Eventually, the students began to play every part including

a recorder of the investigation to be later used in court. 

Paula showed now mercy during her investigation. 

She gave up to 50 years in jail for the robbery. 

William played cool when he was on the hot seat. 

Nothing that I asked him seemed to phase him despite

the steep charges against him, including stealing a shark

in order to murder.

The younger students mapped out a zoo with the animals 

that they had learned earlier. I can't say that I am a huge fan

of zoos because the animals always look so depressed, but this

was an excellent activity to reinforce the vocab. 

Ingles y Literatura Day 2

24/6/09

Today in the Taller de Ingles y Literatura we first learned several different expression such as happy, angry, scared, sad, and mocking. After practicing pronunciation, we eaach emulated the different expressions using animated faces and gestures as well as loud and most likely obnoxious sounds. Then we learned the different parts of the face including eyes, noses, ears, eye brows, cheeks, etc. We played a game where one student blind-folded was guided by another student to find the different parts of the face on the floor and collect a complete face. 

To start the Taller off, we warmed up by animatedly expressing happiness, sadness, anger, etc

After they had the vocab down, I passed them the camera

and they gave me instructions as to what emotion I should 

express. As soon as they said the word in English, I made the 

face and they took the picture. This is the result of "scared". 

After three workshops in a row, we went outside for some

recreation. The students hung out in different small groups

playing various games.



Valeria is always willing to smile for the camera. She is

very active and very very curious. Every time I see her 

she asks me to translate a new word from Spanish to English.


Then Deivid began the arm wrestling fights. All of the students

wanted to challenge the Profers (as teachers are called here), and we

were able to win all of them until they began to organize ... 

And we had no chance. 

We returned to the Tallers for another activity that involved

finding the different parts of the face on the floor, naming them,

and then putting the face together (eyes, ears, nose, and mouth). 

This was all done blind-folded with a guide to tell them where to

go to pick up the different parts, in English.

The younger students put the face together over

the real face of Valeria. 

Paula posed next to the face that she put together. 

Ingles y Literatura Day 1

23/6/09

We started the Taller de Ingles y Literatura learning modes of transportation, months of the year, a few numbers, and how to present yourself. In order to memorize the vocab for the different vehicles, each student was assigned a vehicle and we simulated traffic. Of course this traffic included cars, taxis, boats, airplanes, helicopters, and even submarines all on the same street.

In the Taller running around as cars, trucks, airplanes, etc.

On the bus with Luisa and Denis